


spectacular views

by loveleee



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Carnival, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Spring, and based loosely on one of the comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 10:11:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14258736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveleee/pseuds/loveleee
Summary: Jughead Jones, it turns out, is a very good date.





	spectacular views

**Author's Note:**

> This is set vaguely pre-series...I imagine them being about 16 here, which doesn't really line up with the timing of the murder/Veronica's arrival/etc, but who cares, it's a canon AU. :)
> 
> Based on the very cute Betty & Veronica comic "Pinch Hit Date", which can be found on tumblr here: https://bughead-in-the-comics.tumblr.com/post/172580968824/from-pinch-hit-date-betty-and-veronica-double

Betty purses her lips as she looks into the mirror, tightening her ponytail with a satisfying tug. Her cheeks appear flushed, her lashes look full, her lips are painted a subtle shade of pink. She looks _cute_.

And Archie won’t be able to resist.

She’s been looking forward to this day for weeks, ever since the topic of the Spring Carnival had come up during lunchtime, and it turned out that everyone in their friend group already had plans for that weekend. Kevin was heading to Buffalo for his grandmother’s 80th birthday celebration; Jughead was visiting his mom and sister in Ohio; Ethel had actually volunteered to help work the event, and would be manning one of the game booths all weekend.

“Guess it’s just you and me this year, Betty,” Archie had said through a mouthful of pizza. The butterflies in her stomach had fluttered their wings so hard she hadn’t even been able to finish her tray of iceberg lettuce that the school cafeteria had generously labeled “tossed salad.”

Now the day is finally here. Her first _real_ date with Archie. And okay, maybe he hadn’t actually called it a date, per se – but everyone knows that you don’t go to the Spring Carnival with just one other person as a _friend_. Showing up as a couple…it means something.

The doorbell rings, and Betty’s heart leaps into her throat. She smooths her palms over her blue-and-white checkered skirt, and nods at herself in the mirror one last time. _You got this._

Betty bounds down the stairs, stops before the front door, and forces herself to take a deep breath before she pulls it open. “Hey Ar – Jughead?”

She blinks rapidly. Maybe her heart is beating so fast that it’s making her lightheaded, making her see things. But no, the image before her doesn’t change: it’s still Jughead Jones on her doorstep, an unzipped hoodie on his lanky frame, hands stuffed into the pockets of his well-worn jeans.

“Hey, Betty,” he says.

“Hey,” she repeats, at a momentary loss for words. She looks past him to the sidewalk, but there’s no sign of her neighbor. “Um, Archie’s actually supposed to be coming over any minute –”

“Yeah, about that,” Jughead interrupts. He shifts awkwardly on his feet, and it strikes her that he looks distinctly uncomfortable – which is not an altogether uncommon look for Jughead, but concerning nonetheless. “He’s not coming.”

Betty’s heart, which had leapt at the mere thought of Archie’s presence in her doorway, now sinks into her stomach like a lead pipe.

“He can’t, I mean,” Jughead adds quickly. “He’s got poison ivy.”

“Poison ivy?” she echoes. “What, is he ten?”

Jughead snorts. “I know. You should see him – his arms are practically the same color as his hair.”

“You saw him?”

“I was over there playing video games. From five feet across the room.” He shrugs. “Anyway, he wanted me to say he’s really sorry, but he knew how excited you were for the carnival, so…” Jughead looks embarrassed again when he says, “Here I am.”

Betty doesn’t know what to say. In a matter of seconds, her entire fantasy of the day ahead has fizzled into nothing. No sharing an ice cream cone from the concession stand. No cheering Archie on while he wins her a stuffed animal from the ring toss booth. No shy smiles, no holding hands, no longing looks into one another’s eyes. And most distressingly of all: no first kiss when their gondola stops at the top of the Ferris wheel.

She doesn’t even realize that Jughead is waiting for an answer until he clears his throat and speaks again, his voice a little softer than before – maybe even a little hurt. “We don’t have to go,” he says, scratching at the back of his neck. “I understand if…you know…you’re disappointed.”

His voice cracks slightly on the last word, snapping her out of it. “Juggie, no,” she says, stepping back so he can join her in the foyer. “Of course I want to go. Just let me grab my purse.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

It doesn’t hit her until they’re a little more than halfway there. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be in Toledo right now?”

Jughead glances at her. “Oh. Uh, yeah. It didn’t work out.”

He’s been tight-lipped about his family ever since his mother took Jellybean to live with their grandparents four months ago, so she doesn’t press for details. “I’m sorry. I know you were looking forward to it.”

“Well, you know. You can’t always get what you want.” He gestures between the two of them. “Case in point.”

Betty stops in her tracks. “Do you not want to go with me?” she demands. He’s been dropping comments like this one – self-deprecating, sarcastic – ever since they left her house. Normally she finds his dark humor entertaining, but today? Today she’s not in the mood.

Jughead turns to face her, shoulders slumping. For a moment, he looks exhausted. “Betty – no. It’s not – I want to go. I swear.”

“Then stop acting like you’re doing me some huge favor by coming. And vice versa. I do actually like hanging out with you, you know.” _Even if you’re not Archie. Even if this isn’t a date._

“I know. And I do too. I like hanging out with you, I mean,” he says quietly. He sighs, scratching at his head beneath the brim of his ever-present beanie. “I’m in a weird mood. I’ll be fine once I get some funnel cake in my stomach.”

Betty smiles, and links her arm through his as they continue down the sidewalk. “That’s the spirit.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

They make a beeline for the funnel cake stand once they’re through the front gates, and sure enough, Jughead’s got a little more pep in his step once the sugar and fat are coursing through his veins. Betty sips on a strawberry lemonade and watches him eat, amused.

“Where does it all go?” she wonders aloud.

Jughead quirks an eyebrow. “The void.”

She laughs. “What do you want to do first? We could go say hi to Ethel. I think she’s working at the watergun booth.”

Ethel’s face lights up when she sees Betty waving at her from across the fairgrounds, and falls just as abruptly when her gaze shifts to the boy beside her. Betty frowns, glancing at her companion, but he appears laser-focused on scooping up as much powdered sugar as possible with what remains of his fried dough.

“Hey Ethel!” she says brightly as they stride up to the booth.

“Hey guys.” Ethel crosses her arms over her chest, uncrosses them, and then crosses them again. Betty gets the distinct feeling that something about their appearance has thrown her off-kilter. “Betty, I thought you were coming with Archie today?”

Though she addresses the question to Betty, her eyes remain glued to Jughead, whose sudden interest in the cheap plastic waterguns before them strikes Betty as odd.

“He has poison ivy,” she says. “So Juggie here is pinch-hitting.”

Jughead looks up from his examination of the watergun only briefly. “You know me. Always coming through in a pinch.”

Ethel seems mollified by the explanation, and lets them play a few rounds for free before a group of hyperactive third graders descends on the booth, red tickets clutched in their grubby fists, each one clamoring for a seat. They bid her goodbye, Jughead tugging at his beanie as they leave.

“Seems like Ethel’s in a weird mood today, too,” Betty remarks once they’re out of earshot.

Jughead makes a noise she can only describe as a grumble. “She’s got a crush on me.”

Betty’s eyes grow wide. She’s not shocked by the idea that Ethel would have a crush on him, but the fact that Jughead is actually acknowledging it is a surprise. “She does?”

He nods, a pained look crossing his features. “Last week she left this note in my locker…I mean, it was anonymous, but I could tell it was her handwriting.”

So Ethel had been jealous. Betty’s heart twinges in sympathy; she knows exactly what it’s like to see your crush running around with another girl. Or two. Or three. “What’d it say?”

Jughead shakes his head. “I’m not telling you that.”

“Do you like her back?”

He snorts. “Oh, yeah. How could you tell? Was it the way I completely avoided looking her in the eye?”

“I don’t know. You’re not the easiest person in the world to read.” When she looks up at him, he’s looking right back, his blue eyes bright in the spring sunlight. Unbidden, she feels a funny, fleeting tightness in her chest.

“I guess that’s true,” he says. “Can I have a sip of your lemonade?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

They decide to head for the bumper cars next, Jughead insistent that all the jostling won’t be a problem despite the pound of funnel cake he’s in the process of digesting. “I’m actually kind of hungry again,” he remarks, and Betty can’t help but giggle.

They find a familiar face waiting for them when they reach the line: Reggie Mantle, who watches them approach with a smirk. “I didn’t know you two were a thing,” he says in lieu of greeting. “Nice one, Jones.”

Betty bristles at the implication – that she’s some sort of prize that Jughead has come into possession of – but Jughead beats her to the punch. “We’re not,” he says shortly. “I’m filling in for Archie.”

“He has poison ivy,” Betty adds.

To her surprise, Reggie laughs. “Oh shit, that’s right. Man, what an idiot. Who goes to Pickens Point and gets _out_ of the car?” His eyes flash wickedly. “Hey, did he really get it all over his di—”

“You’re up, Reg,” Jughead interrupts loudly, shoving the jock lightly on the shoulder as they shuffle forward into the arena.

Betty drives her little yellow car absently around the ring, barely paying attention to where she’s going (which turns out to be fine, since the whole point of the endeavor is to crash into things). Somewhere to her left, Jughead and Reggie are repeatedly smashing into one another. Typically she’d roll her eyes and tell them to try spreading the masculine aggression around a little – it is, after all, the one activity where doing so would be appropriate – but her mind is snagged on something Reggie had said in line.

_Who goes to Pickens Point and gets out of the car?_

Who, indeed. Pickens Point was a prime makeout spot nestled in the northwest corner of Pickens Park: secluded, wooded, high up enough for a pretty good view of both the town _and_ the night sky. Betty had only been there during daytime hikes with her family as a kid. Never at night, with a member of the opposite sex.

But apparently Archie had. Recently. Perhaps as recent as the very night before he was supposed to accompany Betty to the carnival.

She pulls Jughead away from the exit as soon as they hop out of the bumper cars, and doesn’t stop until they’re well away from the crowds, at the edge of the field that abuts the woods.

“I think the bathrooms are the other way,” he says mildly, but watches her with a steady eye. She thinks he knows what she’s about to ask.

“Where did Archie get poison ivy?”

Jughead hesitates before he answers. “On his arms. I told you.”

“I mean where was he. There’s obviously not poison ivy in his backyard.”

He sighs, tucking his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “I think you already know, Betts.”

“I want you to tell me.”

“Okay, okay. He went to Pickens Park last night with Cricket O’Dell, and, I dunno. Ended up in the bushes somehow.” Jughead shrugs. “I don’t know all the gory details.”

Heat prickles behind her eyes, and Betty breathes in deeply, willing the tears to remain unshed. “Did he ask you not to tell me?” She asks the question, but like the first, she’s pretty sure she already knows the answer.

“No,” Jughead admits, dropping his chin as he looks at her. “I figured your day had already got screwed up enough. Why make it worse.”

An even more painful thought occurs to her. “Did he even ask you to come in his place?”

Jughead’s silence is an answer in and of itself.

Betty turns away just as the first tear drips down her cheek. She swipes it away roughly with her palm. “You should have told me,” she says, keeping her back turned to Jughead.

“Yeah. Maybe.” She hears him move closer, and she tenses in anticipation of a hand on her shoulder, or her arm, but Jughead doesn’t touch her. “Look, I don’t know if this is going to make you feel any better about it, but I truly don’t think Archie thought of this as a date. He would never intentionally hurt you like that.”

 _But he’ll do it unintentionally, over and over and over again_. “It doesn’t make me feel better,” she says, the words trembling on a shaky laugh. “But thanks for trying.”

“Anytime.”

They’re both quiet for a moment, and then Jughead speaks again. “I know it’s not the same thing. But you know how I was supposed to visit my mom this weekend?”

Betty nods, turning to face him as she wipes a few more tears away from her cheeks.

“The reason I’m not is that she called me yesterday morning and said she had to take on an extra shift at work today. I was already at the bus station, already had my tickets. I haven’t seen her or Jellybean in months. And maybe she really does have to work an extra shift today. But she just…told me not to come.” He lets out a long, heavy breath through his nose. “I guess I’m just trying to say…I know how much it sucks when somebody who’s supposed to love you doesn’t act like it.”

A fresh wave of tears wells in Betty’s eyes, but for an entirely different reason. Without thinking, she steps forward and throws her arms around him, pressing her flushed, wet face against the soft fabric of his sweatshirt.

What he’s told her is so, so much worse than anything Archie could ever do to her. Jughead doesn’t deserve that – no one deserves that.

And he doesn’t even seem to know it.

He hugs her back, tighter than she expects, his arms wrapping firmly around her middle. They stand like that together – she isn’t sure for how long – until his grip eventually loosens, and he steps back, tugging at his beanie, a red blush tinting his cheeks.

For someone so flustered by physical affection, she thinks, Jughead gives pretty great hugs.

“Do you want anything? Ice cream? A giant stuffed elephant? Or I could go punch Reggie in the face,” he offers.

Betty laughs, sniffling slightly. “Reggie didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That we know of.”

She swats him on the arm. “Ice cream sounds amazing.”

“Then ice cream it is.” Jughead offers his arm, and she tucks her hand into the crook of his elbow, letting him lead her back to the fairgrounds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unlike the fantasy-Archie she’d constructed in her head, Jughead does not share an ice cream cone with her. But he does spend at least thirty seconds eyeballing the two vanilla-chocolate soft serve swirls in his hands before giving her the one he’s deemed bigger.

He doesn’t hold her hand, or gaze intensely into her eyes, or win her an armload of stuffed animals (though he does try valiantly at the ring toss, running through nearly a third of his tickets before Betty tugs him away by the sleeve, insisting she _really_ doesn’t need a purple Mickey Mouse toy gathering dust at the back of her closet.)

What he _does_ do, Betty decides, is better than all of that. He talks to her. He makes her laugh. He cheers her up. And by the time the sun starts to drop in the sky, the crowds thinning out, she’s pretty sure she’s close to convincing him to join the Blue and Gold with her, despite his longstanding aversion to organized extracurricular activities.

“C’mon, Jug,” she wheedles, poking at his arm from across the picnic table. “It’s just me, so you’ll practically have complete editorial freedom.”

Jughead tilts his head, flicking a discarded straw wrapper in her direction. “Practically?”

“Well, I’m the editor. I have to edit _some_ thing.”

“Oh, now the truth comes out.”

She kicks him lightly under the table, her foot bumping against his ankle. “Someone has to keep the semicolons in check.”

“I don’t know if I can agree to this unless I get a quota. Eight semicolons per hundred words, or I’m out.”

“To get out, first you have to be in,” she points out with a cheeky grin.

Jughead sighs dramatically. “I’m not saying yes and I’m not saying no. I’m saying I’ll think about it.”

Which, Betty knows, is the closest thing to a _yes_ in Jughead-speak. She claps her hands together beneath her chin, and when he smiles back at her a warm, glowy feeling appears out of nowhere in her chest.

“I wish you would do that more,” she tells him.

“What, capitulate to your demands?”

“Smile.” She rests her chin on one hand, elbow propped on the table. “You have a nice smile.”

His smile changes – softens into something both pleased and bashful – and he says nothing, looking down at his hands where they rest on the table.

Betty watches him for a moment, then lets her eyes drift past him to the sky, where tendrils of pink and orange are beginning to peek out from behind the fluffy white clouds. Today couldn’t have strayed further from what she’d planned, but she feels nothing if not content.

Jughead Jones, it turns out, is a very good date.

She’s about to open her mouth and tell him that when something catches her eye. “Oh!”

Jughead raises an eyebrow and follows her gaze, looking back over his right shoulder. “What?”

Betty bites her lower lip. “How many tickets do you have left?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

If the sudden pallor to his complexion hadn’t caught her attention first, Jughead’s white-knuckled grip on the safety bar would have been enough to clue her in: he’s terrified of heights.

“Juggie, seriously, we don’t have to do this,” she says.

He shakes his head. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

Betty pries the fingers of his right hand off of the bar anyway and clasps it between both of her own, resting their entwined hands on her thigh. “It _will_ be fine. The Ferris wheel was invented over one hundred years ago. It’s perfectly safe.”

She anticipates a snarky retort – _and how many people have gone plummeting to their deaths in that time, hmm, Betts?_ – but Jughead just says, faintly, “I know.”

She squeezes his hand as the ride begins to move, swooping them backwards and up into the air. She’d never known Jughead had a fear of heights – of anything, really, other than forced social interaction, or running out of snacks. It’s actually kind of adorable. And sweet, too, that he’d insisted on joining her despite his distaste for being swept two hundred feet off of the ground.

They don’t talk as the wheel spins them around, once, twice, three times. Betty turns her head and watches the people milling about the grounds grow smaller the higher she goes: children, couples, families. She blinks in surprise when the wheel slows to a stop, leaving her and Jughead rocking gently back and forth in their gondola at the very top.

She looks at Jughead to find him already gazing back at her, and she squeezes his hand again. “Doing okay?”

He swallows. “Yeah. Just…trying not to look down. Or up. Or anywhere, really.”

Betty smiles. “You’re missing a really nice view.”

“I’ve got a pretty nice one right here.”

On impulse, she leans forward and kisses him on the cheek. “Thank you for spending the day with me,” she tells him quietly.

Jughead’s smile is fleeting, hesitant. “I hope I was an adequate substitute-Archie.”

“You’re not a substitute anything,” Betty says firmly. “You’re Jughead.”

His mouth quirks like he’s about to say something self-deprecating, sarcastic; but he pauses, and simply says, “Thanks, Betts.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few minutes later, the wheel glides them back to solid ground. Jughead breathes a sigh of relief, and releases his grip on the safety rail.

But Betty keeps hers on his hand. And she doesn’t let go until he’s walked her all the way home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this, and if you did, that you'll leave a comment! <3
> 
> oh, and! title is a song by Rilo Kiley.


End file.
